WikiLeaks admits insider deleted loads of its data

WikiLeaks has explained the non-appearance of Bank of America data it frequently promised to publish: a defector took the only copies with him when he left the organisation and has now deleted the files.

Daniel Domscheit-Berg left WikiLeaks last summer and took the documents with him following a dispute with Julian Assange. This seems to have centred on Berg's relationship with a woman at Microsoft.

Berg was suspended at the end of August 2010 and, WikiLeaks claims, has tried to extract money from the group in return for their data. In January he set up his own version of WikiLeaks, but the site has been inactive since then. He also wrote a book about his time at the site.

Assange's organisation confirmed on Twitter that Berg had destroyed 20 gigabytes of information from the Bank of America, the entire US no-fly list and US intercept arrangements for 100 companies as well as details and emails from 20 neo-Nazi groups and a German far right group. ®